While it’s usually best to plan short staff meetings to maximize attention and involvement, there are times when there’s simply too much to cover and you know you’ll need to go long. Yet keeping everyone active and engaged in extended sessions is challenging, especially when you’re meeting remotely. From using your free Teams backgrounds to incorporate agenda topics to adding in time for staff to take five, here are some top tips for your next long conference.
1. Choosing Only Key Attendees
One of the best ways to ensure employees are engaged when you conduct a long meeting is to include only the staff members who absolutely need to participate. Holding an “all-hands” pow-wow when the topics apply to just one department means attention spans are more likely to wander. If just a portion of what you need to cover applies to other people on your team, consider hosting smaller, shorter gatherings to disseminate that information.
2. Sticking to an Agenda
If you’re not crafting detailed agendas for each meeting you lead, you should be, and you should always make sure to adhere to what you’ve outlined. Going off-topic, skipping breaks, and overlooking key points fosters distraction, fatigue, and other issues that lead to disengagement.
Draft a clear agenda, and ask all attendees to familiarize themselves with key items ahead of time. To stay on track during the meeting, try incorporating aspects of your agenda as part of your virtual office background. That way, the talking points remain front and center throughout the gathering.
3. Setting Expectations
Making it clear that you expect engagement and participation is important at the outset. Ask staff to power down their devices and to attend the meeting from a quiet location to boost focus.
If you know that during the session you’ll need certain participants to share data or other input, make sure you communicate this expectation in advance. That way everyone is prepared, and you won’t add time to an already long meeting as people scramble to provide requested information.
4. Planning Breaks
Although you might be tempted to plow through your agenda so your long meeting is as brief as possible, it’s crucial to include downtime. Scheduling breaks not only gives staff a chance to refresh and regroup, but it also limits interruptions that result when people get up and leave the room on their own to attend to personal needs.
5. Including Open Discussion
Finally, don’t be tempted to cut a long meeting short by leaving out discussion opportunities. Encourage questions, and note that it’s generally more effective to encourage discourse throughout the gathering rather than holding to the end if your priority is maintaining maximum involvement.
Now that you’ve gotten some tips for boosting engagement, it’s time to prepare for your next long meeting. Start by working with a top virtual conferencing tools provider to find a Zoom background with logo that also allows you to overlay critical agenda points. That way you’ll have a key element ready to go and can focus on putting together the most productive and engaging meeting possible.